We're all familiar with that important actor's tool, the objective, but don't forget the other "O" word: obstacles. Obstacles go hand in hand with objectives but are less frequently discussed, perhaps even misunderstood.

Daniel Talbott planned to be an actor and director. The desire to write plays came long after high school, when he read the late British playwright Sarah Kane's "Blasted," a bleak and violent piece scripted when she was 23.

If Laura Kenny had been around in 1930s and '40s Hollywood, it's a good bet that this mainstay of Seattle's theatre scene would have been cast in the kind of roles that kept Marjorie Main, Marie Dressler, Thelma Ritter, and other such successful character actresses in demand. As ...

Comic actor — and licensed physician — Ken Jeong is a regular on the NBC sitcom "Community." He reprises his star-making role as the psychotic mobster from 2009's "The Hangover" in "The Hangover Part II."